One Life Stand – Hot Chip

The timing of One Life Stand’s arrival could not be better. With British guitar music currently off on its once a decade slumber centre stage has effectively been ceded to electronica. To garner the mass appeal that was theirs for the taking, all Hot Chip really needed to do with their fourth record was up their ‘crossover classic’ singles count to three. Instead they took their feet off the BPM, indulged in a bit too much Mills & Boon and became hopeless romantics instead.

The fatal juxtaposition at the heart of One Life Stand is best illustrated in its title track. Lyrical subject matter rarely is afforded much more importance than when musing decision to bind the rest of your existence to that of someone else. However, coupling such a weighty concept with successive wafer-thin synth riffs jars in the same way it would seem absurd for a bride to walk to the altar with ‘Baby Got Back’ emanating from the church organ.

A lot has been made of the intellectual prominence placed within Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard’s song writing partnership. In light of the LP’s sagging mid-section it becomes difficult not to assume sheer geekiness has been mistaken for technical acumen.

Most of the clangers dropped here don’t stem from ideas that haven’t been thought through but ones which just weren’t any good in the first place. Take the  “I can play Xbox with my brothers” bromace tosh of ‘Brothers’ or the torpid tongue in cheek “humumum” refrain of ‘Slush’.

Where One Life Stand redeems itself is when it realises that a lot of what it wants to say is best said when it is only alluded to. By nature of a swooning falsetto chorus album closer ‘Take It In’ does a sumptuous job of catching the mood you hope Hot Chip sought all along. Likewise ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ tugs at the jugular all the more for its mournful string soaked finale.

For Hot Chip to yet again plough their favourite electro-pop furrow would have been the obvious choice for them to make at this stage in their existence. That they chose to avoid such a straightforward route to success and instead expressed their longstanding romanticism in such an idiosyncratic manner comes as a disappointment. Consequently One Life Stand is a record too serious for the dancefloor and too simplistic for ‘till death do us part’.

5/10